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Mike Carpenter

A Coached Comeback

By 29029 Everesting

November 28^th, 2025

Four years ago, I took a hit that changed everything.

I left a men’s league soccer game with a serious concussion. The recovery was long, and the risk of reinjury was real.

My life had changed.

Suddenly, the things that defined me - an active life, soccer, jujitsu, running… they were off-limits.

Movement had always been my release, and without it, life got quieter.

Heavier. Slower.

My weight crept up, 245 pounds at my peak. I missed competition. I missed community. I missed having something to chase.

That’s when an old college friend and 29029 veteran, Mike "Mad Dog" Davis, told me about 29029 Everesting.

It sounded exactly like the kind of challenge I needed.

And I didn’t know it yet, but it would also introduce me to the coach who would change how I moved, trained, and lived.

I registered for Mont-Tremblant in 2024.

I figured I could muscle my way through it.

And I did, but barely.

Stubborn willpower was the only thing that got me to the Red Carpet in the pouring rain after over 30 hours.

But it wasn’t pride I felt when I reached it.

It was realization.

I had finished, but I hadn’t earned it the way I wanted to.

I hadn't prepared like I should have, didn't train as much as I would've liked, and suffered more than necessary on the slopes because of it.

That mountain was the mirror, showing me exactly where I needed to grow.

It was on that mountain that I met Coach Derek Toshner.

In a short conversation, he changed the way I thought about endurance.

And he helped me keep climbing.

He taught me the French step, how to breathe between steps instead of stopping, how to reframe sleep at 29029 to napping, so as not to feel dejected by only getting 1-2 hours sleep...

Every piece of advice worked.

For the first time, I realized what I’d been missing wasn’t motivation. It was method.

I became a Dad late in life. At Mont-Tremblant, I was 48 years old, with three kids aged 6, 2, and 1.

My health since the injury had taken a dive, and I started to think about what that meant as my kids grew up.

The earliest my youngest daughter will graduate from college is when I will be 70 years old.

I think about that a lot.

If I wanted to be active and present in her world, I had to rebuild mine.

I decided a big reset year for a milestone birthday is how I’d start.

And I decided I wanted a coach to help me along the way.

After meeting Derek on the mountain, he was the easy choice when I decided to hire a 29029 coach.

I wasn’t necessarily looking for motivation, but I wanted structure.

Knowledge.

Expertise.

Someone to meet me where I was, but also push me past what I thought I could do.

When we started, I told him my goal.

“I turn 50 the day after Stratton, and I want to reset my body before that.”

I registered for TRAIL Park City, 29029 x Aspen, and Stratton.

Coach Derek built me a plan that felt different from anything I’d ever seen.

Smart, flexible training built around my schedule, my family, my business, and even my injuries.

He didn’t care if I couldn’t train perfectly; he just cared that I trained consistently.

We met a few times a month on video calls, sometimes even mid-workout. He adjusted for my torn meniscus, my arthritis, my travel… he even helped me reframe my mindset on busy days.

When life gets loud, double down on foundations.

That was the gift of coaching. It wasn’t just getting me fit, it was changing how I thought!

By summer, I was 60 pounds lighter. But the number didn’t matter as much as what it represented: discipline.

Every rep, every run, every early-morning workout with Derek guiding me built confidence I didn’t know I’d lost.

After months of training, doing everything I could to not disappoint Coach Derek or myself, it was time to test it.

TRAIL intimidated me.

Three mountain marathons in three days.

Elevation topping out over 10,000 feet above sea level…

Oh, and did I mention that I had exercise-induced asthma?

But Coach Derek had me ready.

For Day One, he told me to go a bit slower than I could. There was no way to know how the altitude would impact me, so smart pacing was important.

I ended up with a great group of participants who went by the name "Team LFG" most of that day, and by the end of it? Well, that day had flown by!

I still felt good on Day Two, so I decided to push the pace a bit more. I’d spend a few miles with somebody, then if I felt the need to up the pace, I’d continue on until I found the next participant to hike with. Almost inevitably, we would have meaningful conversations, which is part of the beauty of the 29029 community.

Intense focus and presence became my goal as the miles ticked away, and I kept that momentum going into the final day.

Day Three felt like my first reward from all the work I’d put in working with Coach Derek.

I’d done the hard stuff, now I was reaping the benefits.

Of course, it was still hard. You can’t hike over 26 miles a day in Park City and not expect a challenge.

But it was doable. More than doable, even. In stark contrast to the suffering I had to endure to summit Mont-Tremblant, this time I was enjoying the grit fest.

When I broke the tape the final time, I realized what Derek’s plan had done.

It hadn’t just made me capable.

It made me calm.

Present.

Able to enjoy the grind instead of simply surviving it.

I got so lucky.

Lucky to have the opportunity and support to enter events like that.

Lucky to have Derek as a coach.

Lucky to make it uninjured through three mountain marathons in three days.

And I wasn’t done with altitude.

Aspen was next.

The town of Aspen felt surreal.

High elevation, wild weather, epic views… and after TRAIL, the altitude wasn’t much of a question for me.

Coaching had replaced chaos with confidence.

I was ready.

Derek was at the mountain, so I had the luxury of talking to him face-to-face on the slopes.

When storms rolled in, he laughed and said, “It’s dark, it’s cold, but at least the rain is blowing straight into our faces!”

That’s Coach Derek in a sentence - positive pessimism. Finding the humor, but keeping the grit.

It helped me keep climbing.

By midnight, I faced a difficult choice.

One more climb, or call it a night.

I could hear Coach Derek’s voice even though he was no longer with me.

You’ve got more in you.

So I climbed.

And climbed.

Through cold. Sun. Rain. Snow. Rainbows. Wind.

And eventually, I reached the summit for the final time.

Derek was there, waiting.

Coach.

Teammate.

Friend.

That Red Hat meant more than the first one ever could.

It represented the work behind it and the person who guided me there.

My year was almost complete.

Stratton was hard.

No easy sections.

No rhythm.

No mercy.

Just 17 climbs of pure grind.

I knew that how I’d finish was a function of two things: how fast I could climb, and how much grit I had.

I kept that in my head.

Through the day, and through the night.

At 1 am, when fatigue hit and the mountain got harder, I remembered how far I’d come since Tremblant.

That mountain nearly broke me.

This one was building me.

When I hit the Red Carpet on Saturday, tears came fast.

I’d done it!

I was about to turn 50.

I’d lost weight.

I’d reset my body.

I’d earned my Black Bib.

And for the first time in years, I felt at peace.

I started with Coach Derek to help prepare me for a better 29029.

But what I found was something bigger.

I learned how to train smarter.

How to stay consistent when life got chaotic.

How to build a body and mindset that can handle whatever comes next.

Four years after that concussion, I still feel its effects.

And perhaps I always will.

I may never return to that version of myself that existed before it - the one who played soccer, sparred in jujitsu, and rarely had to think twice about recovery.